"They used to call me a ‘swoldier,’ which didn’t make me feel the best."

Leave it to Simone Biles to speak out about bullying with eloquence and grace, just as she does when tumbling around the uneven bars while millions of people look on.

Revealing in a new interview that she was bullied because of the size of her arms — gold medal winning, all-around badass arms for Team USA — Simone said that these taunts and jeers about her body size became a common part of her life when she was younger. “People would say mean things at the time. They used to call me a ‘swoldier,’ which didn’t make me feel the best,” Simone explained to Today. “I wore sweaters or jackets all year long to cover my arms.”

In fact, Simone said that when she became more exposed to the talented young women in America’s gymnastics training programs, her confidence in her body quickly grew. Aly Raisman, her 2016 Olympic “Final Five” teammate who also dealt with body-shaming when she was younger, proved to be a main source of inspiration.

“As gymnasts, we look similar to each other, so we’ve helped each love our bodies because it helps us with what we do. Everybody looked the same, had the same muscular build, and we could all do things that other athletes couldn’t do,” Simone said. “Aly Raisman helped me a lot with my body-confidence issues and helped me learn to love how I look. She’s taught me a lot along the way, but most of the time, it’s just the same message: love yourself.”

Now, Simone is showing off her arms all the time — in tank-tops, strapless dresses, you name it — knowing that she couldn’t care less about the way people perceive her anymore. (Uh, have you seen her gold medal count?) “I wish I could tell my younger self to be positive about my body, because when you learn to love your body, you learn to fall in love with yourself,” she concludes. “To me, healthy body image is when you feel confident with yourself — inside and out. If you love your body, then that’s all you can do. It doesn’t matter what anybody else says.”

Sadly, this isn’t the first time Simone has had to deal with bullies making crude and tasteless comments about her body. Just last month, social media trolls were out in full force to make unsolicited comments about her hairstyle during a University of Texas football game. But Simone clapped right back, tweeting, “I have 1 question to everyone commenting about my hair when I genuinely look happy in the photo...Do you look perfect ALL the time? Everything in perfect order?”